Tony Burman
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Tony Burman (born 13 June 1948) is editor in chief of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's English services division. In this role since March 2002, he serves as CBC's chief journalist in implementing journalistic policy across all English media platforms: radio, television, and the internet. He also provides leadership around the coverage of major events, elections and political conventions, as well as other special journalistic projects.
As one of Canada's most experienced journalists, he has held a variety of senior roles at the CBC over the past 35 years, and produced many award-winning news and documentary programs for both CBC TV and Radio.
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[edit] Career
[edit] Print
As a student in the 1960s, Burman edited two school newspapers, one of which was the Loyola News (of what is now Concordia University). In that role, most notably, he was called upon by the Canadian University Press to investigate the circumstances surrounding the resignations of the editors of the University of Windsor's student paper, the Lance,[1] who had reprinted a controversial essay comparing the status of students at California State University and the status of African Americans. His commission concluded the university administration had interfered with the independence of the newspaper and forced the editors out: "the concept of freedom of the press at Windsor is very much in doubt."[2] His arguments in the official report, filed at the CUP office in Ottawa, later became encapsulated as the exemplar case in defending the underground journalism movement; the Canadian counterpart to a larger debate regarding the treatment of a now-classic civil rights essay, The Student as Nigger, as well as other related forms of "challenging" social commentary.
Burman's first professional role was as an Education Reporter at his father's newspaper, the Montreal Star, in the late 1960s. He then spent several years as a freelancer, including a stint in South America, where he found his first big story: Vilcabamba, often called the valley of longevity and reputed to be one of the sources for modern fountain of youth mythologies.
[edit] Radio
Burman joined the CBC in 1971 or 1972. He worked for CBC Radio in Montreal as a contributing producer to As It Happens and, later, as executive producer of Cross Country Checkup, the CBC's national open-line program. While producing Cross Country Checkup (1973-75), he produced the first on-air French/English collaboration with simultaneous translation heard on both CBC's French- and English-language networks; organized the first two-country hook-up involving the CBC and National Public Radio in the U.S.; and created the first three-continents hook-up in 1974 -- debating the merits of the Monarchy -- involving the CBC's Checkup (also on NPR that week in the U.S.), the BBC in the United Kingdom and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
[edit] Television
Before 1975, Burman also worked for CBC Television in Montreal as a current affairs story editor with the nightly regional supper-hour program City At Six. He then moved to Toronto, where he ultimately landed as senior writer on The National, CBC Television's nightly flagship news and current affairs hour, under the guidance of Lloyd Robertson (1975-76), Peter Kent (1976-78), and Knowlton Nash (1978-88).
From 1980-82, Burman was executive producer of The National and created the redesign of the newscast when it moved in 1982 to its new prime-time slot at 10 p.m. (joined by The Journal). After this, he spent three years based in London (1982-85) as the European bureau producer for CBC Television news. While there, he and correspondent Brian Stewart covered stories in more than 30 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. They were also the first North American journalists on the ground to cover the 1984 - 1985 famine in Ethiopia, where they found Birhan Woldu (the "face of famine" that inspired both Live Aid and Live 8).
Burman was a senior documentary producer for five years with The Journal (1985-90), where he produced many Gemini award-winning documentaries rebroadcast on the BBC, PBS and other foreign networks. These included Sudan: Children of Darkness (1989; Gemini Award 1990; UDNA Prize, Monte Carlo Festival 1991), the first inside look at the kidnapping of children as part of the second Sudanese civil war; The Last Great Cause (1986; Gemini Award 1988), a two-part examination of the legacy of the Spanish Civil War on its 50th anniversary; and Mandela (1986; Gemini nomination 1986), the first television biography of Nelson and Winnie Mandela, which was rebroadcast in 18 countries, and included a dramatic reenactment of the 1964 Rivonia Trial which sent Mandela to jail. Other special programs produced by Burman at The Journal included The National/Journal 'Inquiry' in 1990 with Barbara Frum and Peter Mansbridge, entitled Is Canada Drifting Apart?, and An Interview with Nelson Mandela (1989), a special program broadcast on The Journal involving Barbara Frum and Mr. Mandela a day after he was released from jail.
From 1990-93, Burman was chief news editor of CBC Television. In 1993, he returned to The National as executive producer, creating the current hour-long format and successfully addressing management concerns regarding the show's flagging ratings.
[edit] Management
Before returning to produce The National in 1993, Burman spent a year as managing director of CBC's all-news network, CBC Newsworld.
Since his return to management in 1998, Burman has been head of CBC Newsworld, renewing the program schedule and refocusing the network on its news roots.
For CBC Television, Burman has also been leading all news and current affairs programming since February 2000. In that period, he led the successful reorganization of CBC Television's information services into a single, integrated CBC NEWS division that encompasses national, regional, and Newsworld operations across Canada and abroad. That integration of news services now includes CBC Radio and | CBC News Online.
In early 2006, Burman launched a new column at CBC.ca. He discusses current events, journalistic policy, and provides an indication as to the future of news and current affairs coverage at CBC. He also asks for feedback, to which he often replies.
[edit] Service
Burman has served on the boards of several charitable organizations. He also travels widely in support of public broadcasting, speaking at universities and conferences around the world.
[edit] Thoughts on Journalism
- Accountability: "We are not only the national public broadcaster but we are [also] a large news organisation... and we have an obligation to try to set and keep high standards.... Our 'bible' is a handbook of CBC Journalistic Standards and Practices. It's a large and detailed policy book that outlines the CBC practice on a wide range of journalistic issues. It is to these policies that anyone in the public can hold CBC journalists accountable" (speech to the Empire Club of Canada, 25 Feb 1999). [3]
- Credibility: "Every news organization has only its credibility and reputation to rely on" (qtd. in Globe & Mail, 16 October 2001). [4]
- Supporting Democracy: "We believe that informed citizenship benefits from the expression of the fullest range of responsible opinion on important issues, rather than artificially limiting the spectrum of debate to favour one particular perspective -- however apparently right and justified it may be. At the end of the day, we trust our [audiences] to draw their own conclusions" (National Post, 25 June 2003). [5]
- New Trends: "In the days ahead... the challenge for established newspapers, broadcast networks and websites is to come up with ways of harnessing the power and wisdom of the audience in a way that adheres to professional ethics and accepted journalistic policy. In other words, a genuine partnership -- and one that is more methodical than simply tossing people small cameras or microphones and then wishing for the best" (column, 3 April 2006). [6]
- New Trends: "More than ever, audiences are determining how the media will evolve. They want news, information and much of their media on their terms on a variety of platforms -- whether TV, radio, newspapers, laptops, personal organizers, cellphones or iPods. And they want a genuine two-way relationship with their content-providers that is more than simply sitting back and absorbing.... They want to respond, engage and create -- to be contributors, not merely consumers" (column, 18 April 2006). [7]
- Credibility: "Credibility cannot be achieved overnight. But public broadcasters must conduct journalism in an open and accountable way.... If you find that the news is only gossip and irrelevant to public interest, avoid going into it" (qtd. in Taipei Times, 11 May 2006, page 4). [8]
- Supporting Democracy: "There is no more important contribution that we can make to society than strong, publicly-spirited investigative journalism" (qtd. in Canadian Association of Journalists newsletter, May 2006, p.2). [9]
- In a Crisis: "the role of the media... is to try to separate fact from fiction, to help our audiences understand what is happening and why — and to respond to the unfolding drama, as best we can under the circumstances, in a way that makes sense of it all.... To connect the dots, knowing full well that horrific events are rarely random" (column, 14 September 2006). [10]
- Supporting Democracy: "Despite the self-righteousness of many Canadians, Canada has been a closed society when it comes to access to information" (qtd. in The New York Times, 2 November 2006). [11]
- New Trends: "We're heading into a world where we're all going to become content providers, not TV stations, not newspapers, not radio stations.... Our reporters will no longer be radio reporters or TV reporters — that particular T-shirt will be put aside and there will be far more contributions to the web, far more mixing and movement among the various networks and platforms" (qtd. in member papers of the Canadian Press, including the Toronto Star[12] and the Globe & Mail[13], 30 November 2006).
[edit] External links
- Burman's column at cbc.ca
- Full text of speech to the Empire Club of Canada on Privacy and the Media, as part of a two-part presentation with Bob Rae, 25 February 1999.
- Video of acceptance speech for award recognizing the quality of CBC's coverage of the Iraq War
- Broadcaster Magazine article announcing Burman's receipt of the 2004 RTNDA Canada President's Award, "presented annually to honour individuals, stations, companies or groups who have brought distinction to, or have made major contributions to, broadcast journalism."
[edit] References
- Official bio at CBC
- Biographical profile by Megan Griffith-Greene
- Canadian Who's Who entry. Retrieved on May 11, 2006.
- Covering the famine, by Brian Stewart. Retrieved on May 11, 2006.
